Osprey's latest publication is this study of the types of tanks shipped to the Soviet Union starting in late 1941 and continuing through the end of the war under the Lend-Lease Program. Due to their armor losses following the success of Germany's Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army desperately needed replacements and turned to their allies for help.

This book details the number and types of tanks provided to the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945 by Britain and the United States. The author goes into detail about the number of vehicles sent during the various phases of the contract periods and the Russian reactions to the vehicles. There's not a lot of detail about the strategic use of the lend-lease tanks since the book focuses more on how many vehicles were being sent and when. The book does provide some interesting information about the various colors of the tanks provided to the Red Army, and where a tank may have been manufactured (e.g. Canada versus Britain) may have affected what color it would have been.

The Karl "Gerat" (device) was a huge self-propelled siege mortar. The 60cm shells weighed around 5000 pounds and contained several hundred pounds of explosives. Hasegawa says that the Karl made a "significant impact" wherever it was used. The problems with Karl were that it wasn't very mobile, and it required special ammunition. When a Karl was in use, it had to be in a special firing position, which should be level and support the chassis.

This is Hasegawa's release of their Karl Mortar in 1/72. It includes the "Munitionschlepper" Panzer IV. This kit has been released before, with the Munitionschlepper or with the railway transport add-on. What makes this kit desirable is that you get more options for the basic Karl mortar.

Gaining momentum on this side of the pond is a model company out of Taiwan called Ding-Hao Hobby, a sister company to AFV Club, that specializes in subjects not well covered (or not covered at all) in injection molded plastic. Their kits are short-run, multi-media affairs mostly aimed at advanced modelers. I first came across Ding-Hao Hobby from a pilot friend of mine who brought me a German Bussing Nag L4500S truck sporting dual MG151 triple machine gun mounts (DH96003). I have since purchased several more DH kits before deciding to review their U.S. Army T77 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage.

The T77 is based on a modified M-24 Chaffee chassis with a specialized turret studded with no less than six U.S. M2 Browning 50cal machine guns - a frightening prospect for anything that would have the bad luck of straying into its line of fire.

The book goes into fantastic detail on the subject of the Panzerwaffe between 1942 and the end of the war in 1945. The great German military war machine was founded on the Panzer and this book shows in great depth the units, their function and the reports written at the time on the designs and short comings of different panzers. I found the pictures in this book fascinating and I can say these were all new to me! The book kept my attention from beginning to end with the most informative way to tell all the facts and history of the Panzerwaffe. When I was only halfway through, I had already ordered the first book in the series as these are a must have for anyone with a love for tanks!

I recommend this book to everyone with an interest in the Panzerwaffe, and tanks generally.

Thanks go to Osprey Publishing for providing this book to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it for them